Outlaw 950 Crystal Sample Converter - Upsample? (1 Viewer)

[Chris Barker]

I just received the April 2002 Stereophile and Sam Tellig has an extensive review discussion of the new Musical Fidelity A3-24 DAC. He discusses the MF's implementation of the Crystal CS8420 Sample-rate Converter chip. Apparently this chip among other things upsamples and according to Sam improves the sound.

I just rechecked the Outlaw site and the 950 specs but it does not mention the use of this chip?

I was wondering if any of the beta testers have been able to fathom whether the 950 provides any upsampling improvements and whether they were audible for Redbook CDs?

Thanks so much to the beta testers for the information they have provided thus far.

-CB

 

[Kevin C Brown]

I was always under the impression that true upsampling (44.1 to 88.2 kHz, etc.) *could* improve the sound.

But resampling, say 44.1 kHz to 96 kHz would have the potential of worsening the sound.

This is why for years and years, the DAT folks tried to avoid sample rate conversion between the CD std of 44.1 kHz and the original DAT std of 48 kHz. And in fact, all DAT decks are compatible with either 44.1 or 48.

 

[John Morris]

I was wondering if any of the beta testers have been able to fathom whether the 950 provides any upsampling improvements and whether they were audible for Redbook CDs?

Chris: Sorry, although the 950 will pass a 96kHz signal, it does not upsample to 192kHz. At least that was what I was told by Outlaw when I asked. Oh, and you are very welcome!

 

[brian a]

Damn it, John. I had hoped to throw up a quick couple of thousand posts while you were away and catch up to you.
Welcome back.

 

[John Morris]

Welcome back.

Brian: Thank you! It's good to be back! (now, if you want to catch up to me, you should reply in the next post... you're welcome. At least that's how I got my post numbers up... )

 

[Dan Hitchman]

In the cryptic jargon of the spec. sheet on the Cirrus Logic 24/192 PCM DACs being used in the Model 950 it states there is some sort of manipulation of 44.1 and 48 kHz source signals.

Does this mean they upsample those signals to 88.2 and 96 kHz respectively? Anyone care to shed some light?

Dan